Congrats to the Columbia City Bakery for being featured on the front page of the New York Times web site this morning. And while the Times lauds it for its incredible pastries, they also bake what I believe to be the best bread in Seattle.
No neighborhood is truly livable without a really great local bakery, and since ours is just a few blocks from a light rail station, I invite those of you who aren’t so lucky to hop on a train and share it.
Since most of us are subsidizing this waste of money (light rail), i guess we should take our free ride.
**waste means the method and route they chose is about the highest cost per averag user per mail possible. we could have bought all its users a new prius for $40mm; far less even than the annual operating charges
@1, If you’re concerned about the cost per user, you should use it more. More users at the same cost = less cost per user.
Goldy, you seem to have forgot to add the link to the article.
righton @ 1,
Right on, righton. It’s really bad for us east-siders. We have no light rail, so we have to get into our car and use the tax-payer subsidized highways to cross a massive waste-o-money floating bridge, then get onto the tax-payer subsidized streets with tax-payer subsidized electricity-consuming traffic control lights.
And imagine those New Yorkers who will feel compelled to fly out here to try the Columbia City Bakery. Those poor saps will have to unwillingly be searched by the TSA (which is truly the largest socialist expansion of our government in recent history when a private industry was instantly nationalized by Comrade Obama…oops…er…I mean President Bush). They will fly to and from airports that are heavily subsidized by wasteful federal and state government grants, and will fly though a heavily bloated, massively expensive air traffic control system ($11.4 billion requested by the FAA next year), all while navigating by taxpayer subsidized GPS satellites ($14 billion
downup the tubes).And all us poor taxpayers get for all of our hard-earned money that’s been stolen by the government is a good pastry. I am outraged!
about 10 billion to move 14,000 people a day. for 1% of that i could move them all in Prius’s.
righton @ 4,
That’s nothing. The interstate system has cost nearly $0.5 trillion to develop. We could have moved just as many people in conestoga wagons on gravel roads for 1/10th the cost….
@5..and you would do business how? you would transport goods how?
14,000 people a day, which is REALLY 7000 people a day each way.
7000 whole people…wow fucking wow.
how much commerce does light rail move? NADA.
@6,
And by commerce, do you refer to the local domestic product?
The city’s largest single employer is the University of Washington with about 28,000 jobs. Beyond that, the health care sector employs nearly 100,000 in Seattle. The “products” produced by those enterprises generate about $14 billion in revenues. And yet for the most part, those “products” are invisible and do not occupy transportation capacity.
Perhaps that Conestoga is truly more in keeping with your grasp of modern post-industrial commerce. For the sake of our local waters, please don’t forget to clean up after your oxen.
Dr. Dre,
“and you would do business how? you would transport goods how?”
What… What?!? So you are admitting that there is economic benefit for one of the largest tax-payer funded, guvmint run, socialist program in our history?
“how much commerce does light rail move? NADA.”
Are you retarded or something? What isn’t commerce about someone taking the light rail to the airport? Or downtown to go shopping?
hey doc, at 7…light rail does near zero to help UW….the line doesn’t get you to the university…so i’m hard pressed to understand how 10 billion has helped the college?
state, in a budget crunch should slash that stupid sounder; customers pay only 20% of operating costs; rest of us suck it up. rather than more taxes, slash that piece of yuppie welfare.
righton,
You don’t understand anything, do you? You don’t get corporate welfare, the socialism of the interstate highway system, any of that, do you?
Uh, I pay highway road taxes for my roads. Direct tax. more gas i buy, more taxes i pay
BUT>>>> only by the power of the gun and courts…I also have to pay a general sales tax for a good i never use….light rail and sounder…
(and ps, i love trains, my beef is with the extreme waste and blind love of these things).
@7..I suppose when I see a container of goods being shipped on the light rail I will take it seriously….
@10.I have less of a problem with the sounder than I do with that boondogle light rail clusterfuck. Billions just being thrown down the shitter. EVERY promise has failed to materialize for that program….big surprise.
at least the sounder uses existing rail lines – and its actually FULL of people – unlike light rail.
why is it that socialists think that EVERY government project or program is socialist?
earth to nutty socialists: the interstate highway is not a socialist program. well thought out infrastructure is not socialist. Taking money from me and giving to some schlep as part of some dumbass program- that is socialist.
righton @ 9,
“light rail does near zero to help UW….
WROOOOOOOOOOONNNGGGG-O bumpkin.
“the line doesn’t get you to the university…so i’m hard pressed to understand how 10 billion has helped the college?”
Let me see if I can put this in redneckeese. The “10 billion” was an INVESTMENT. So any time the system expands (that means, gets built into other areas), benefits cumulate from the earlier investment. Construction is taking place RIGHT NOW for the downtown-to-UW branch.
Your argument is akin to claiming the completion of the first stretch of interstate highway (part of I-70, the Pennsylvania turnpike) in 1956 didn’t benefit, say, California. As the interstate network grew, the investment paid off exponentially. California most certainly benefits from the existence of I-70, as does the rest of the continental states. Currently, the economic benefits of the interstate system are suggested to be TEN TIMES the actual construction and maintenance costs.
Rail-based transit is the same way. Ever leave your compound and visit NYC, DC, Boston, SF, Chicago? The cities are almost unimaginable without their rail-based transit systems.
@1 Link has about 18,000 trips per day so about 9,000 riders. You say you could get each of them a Prius for $40 million. That is $4,444 per rider. Where can I buy a Prius for under $5k?
7000 individuals a day….say it with me now….7000 whole people and countless billions.
pie in the fucking sky.
Dr. Dre,
7000 individuals a day….say it with me now….7000 whole people and countless billions.
Of course, per mile, there were far fewer users of I-70 in 1956 then that. Yet…somehow I-70 ended up paying off by a factor of 10.
That’s the problem with you fucking wingnuts…no concept of “investment.”
@7…the next time you are at the store, put your thinking cap on and try and figure out how all those products got there.
hey 16; the current spent dollars on light rail is hardly an investment; they need billons more to keep extending the line…we’ve gotten near zero long term benefit from the $$ spent
@19…perhaps you can tell the class when light rail will “pay off”…..200 years?
Righton @ 21,
“the current spent dollars on light rail is hardly an investment;”
Sober up and try that one again, Sparky.
“they need billons more to keep extending the line…”
That is obvious. Not sure what your point is.
“we’ve gotten near zero long term benefit from the $$ spent”
On the other hand, “long term benefits” usually accrue over, you know…the LONG TERM. (Really…look up what the word “investment” means.)
Yours is the kind of short-term troglodyte thinking that would have prevented the Interstate system from being constructed in the fifties (“What??? It will take 25 fucking years to pay off???? Feds keep your hands out of my Transportation!”) Hell, if you Wingdings had your way, we’d still be boiling our water and using outhouses (you know, without a sewer system and all).
Goldy: they dug CC’s Full Tilt Ice Cream, too. Sara Dickerman the author of the piece, lives in CC.
darryl; all you offer is spending $4bb or so ever 4 yrs, adding anothe 1,000 or so riders. You offer a perpetual gov’t subsidy machne; one that far outweighs the benefits. Once they finish the $3.5bb to extend to university, they’ll do it again to eastside, lie about the costs, and get another 1,000 or so riders.
If they had built it to get people of the freeways, like putting it down I5, and maybe skipped th egold plating, we’d have a decent system. I love the urban transit in countries all over the world, but each of those is far denser than here.
Dr. Dre,
“perhaps you can tell the class when light rail will “pay off”…..200 years?”
Nope, but for $200/hr, I’d be happy to provide a sound report in a fancy binder for you.
It doesn’t take much to realize that it will be much shorter than 200 years, given the success that nearly every other “mature” rail-based transit system in the country has had
Hell NYC’s subway system is just over 100 years old and carries well over 5,000,000 passengers per day. You’d be hard pressed to find a credible analysis suggesting that NYC could be anything close to the city it is today without its 100 year history of a rail-based transit system.
Righton,
“all you offer is spending $4bb or so ever 4 yrs, adding anothe 1,000 or so riders.”
It sounds to me like you’ve gotten your figures from a 4-year old.
“You offer a perpetual gov’t subsidy machne; one that far outweighs the benefits.”
And there were arguments JUST LIKE THIS when the interstate system was started, and the NY subway system, and the Chicago Ell system.
“Once they finish the $3.5bb to extend to university, they’ll do it again to eastside,”
I sure as hell hope so! Interstate 70 became MUCH more useful when it was interconnected with a nation-wide network of interstate highways. Likewise, the light rail system will pay off exponentially as the system grows. Your speculation that ridership would increase linearly with additional infrastructure is pathetically naive, and defies the experience in every other city in the country that has built a regional system.
“lie about the costs, and get another 1,000 or so riders.”
Pssst…don’t get your “facts” from four year olds, or hate-talkers. Your life will improve.
“If they had built it to get people of the freeways, like putting it down I5, and maybe skipped th egold plating”
You do realize that there is no “gold plating” in the system, except on the electronic circuit boards as is the industry standard. Really, man, lay off the wingding talk radio.
“I love the urban transit in countries all over the world, but each of those is far denser than here.”
Absolutely not true. Many Europe cities have multiple types of rail-base transit in almost every cities, dense or not. For example, one can travel all over, say, Germany or Denmark between cities of any size and then use local rail or trams within the city.
Darryl,
Our current crop of wingies is kind of slow. Concepts like “The Future” don’t get into their heads. I understand the compulsion to argue with them. But, really, righton? Should we not just bash these twits for the pleasure that bashing provides?
Our side has always believed in the power of reason, that the best argument will prevail. Sarah Palin is making millions now suggesting otherwise. It’s tough to be rational in times like these.
darry; go check out the tukwila station; its very fancy, beautiful. But we don’t need beautiful. For 14,000 daily riders we could have spent far less
$3.5bb is the puplic cost of the extension.
and your highway analogy fails. Nobody, save for the too poor to drive, will ever take a light rail from say Northgate down to Tukwila.
Light rail only works in urban areas, and not as a long haul vehicle.
I wish you’d read up on the true costs. Until you recognize the costs, sure, it sound fun to have a train to the airport. (of course then you could tell me why we just turnee the 405 corridor train line into a hiking trail). Oh well, no sense arguing w/ facts..
Dr. Dre,
“why is it that socialists think that EVERY government project or program is socialist?”
I don’t think real socialist actually do believe that. The charges that something is “socialist” because it is a government program seem to be pretty much confined to the teabagging element of the conservative movement.
“earth to nutty socialists: the interstate highway is not a socialist program.”
Earth to teabagger…DUH!
“well thought out infrastructure is not socialist.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“Taking money from me and giving to some schlep as part of some dumbass program- that is socialist.”
Sorry, Squirt, Socialism is NOT defined as government programs that you personally dislike.
wow; opex for Sounder is $17 per boarding; that’s only operating, ignores the monster capital spend
http://www.soundtransit.org/Do.....009%20.pdf
Righton @ 29
“go check out the tukwila station; its very fancy, beautiful. But we don’t need beautiful.”
Right…let’s make it look like a freaking Soviet cold war relic.
“For 14,000 daily riders we could have spent far less”
Sure…we could have just had them stand out in the rain, set up outhouses for “physiological need”, and have the passengers carried in horse-drawn carriages.
“$3.5bb is the puplic cost of the extension.”
Sounds like an outstanding long-term investment to me.
“and your highway analogy fails. Nobody, save for the too poor to drive, will ever take a light rail from say Northgate down to Tukwila.”
I most certainly won’t. “Tukwila” sounds suspiciously like something I see baseball players doing before they go up to bat.
“Light rail only works in urban areas, and not as a long haul vehicle.”
Well then, it is a damn good thing we have an urban area in which to to place it! Imagine how embarrassing it would be to run the line through Death Valley or something.
I wish you’d read up on the true costs.”
I wish you’d stop listening to the hate-talkers.
“Until you recognize the costs, sure, it sound fun to have a train to the airport.”
It is more than fun…it’s USEFUL!
“(of course then you could tell me why we just turnee the 405 corridor train line into a hiking trail). Oh well, no sense arguing w/ facts..”
Hey…I’d love to have a system operating on that route between Renton to Snohomish. I go to Snohomish 2-4 times a month and would definitely use rail if I could. Alas, there are structural issues (like that the existing rail corridor is a SINGLE track). Fortunately, the planned use does not exclude the possibility of turning it into a transit corridor if the voters express the will.
Roger Rabbit is traveling in eastern Washington this weekend to inspect lettuce and carrot farms.
(munch crunch munch crunch)
Costco has a good bakery — and cheap pizza.
the stations are excessively envisioned ….
beacon hill station is a palace, a few holes in the ground would have done the job.
PS: could some rail supporter please find one teeny tiny thing to object to? The universal obeseient adulation in lock step harmony is frightening.
NYC, you have a hole for a stairway or escalator. You don’t need a thirty million dollar building above the hole that also displaces an entire block preventing TOD.
We have a great bakery in Wedgwood called “Grateful Bread”. Lots of neat Sunday-after-church goodies, live music some evenings…and really good bread. Back in 2008, when we were enjoying the full fruition of BushCo’s fiscal and energy policies (while our much-pandered-to “tea partiers” were apparently sound asleep) their really good bread was costing less than much of the crap in the bread aisle at the Safeway across the street. Something apparently having to do with the price of all the diesel it took to get that mass-produced bread from wherever it originated to the shelves.
Methinks that as the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise. (3 bux a gallon is probably in your rear view mirror from now on) stuff from local merchants will become competitive with the wares of national chains. In general, this will be A Good Thing.
Oh, by the way…the wife and I spent some time Sunday afternoon at the University District Sidewalk Fair, where we first met, 39 years ago to the day. One of the things we did there was stop by the New York Times booth and take advantage of their special discount to sign up for their Sunday edition. As soon as that starts hitting our porch, we’re calling Fairview Fanny and cancelling. When the person on the other end asks if we’d mind getting their paper for free, we’ll say no, and to please tell his/her boss that we don’t want his shitty rag contaminating our doorstep any more with his increasingly right-wing drivel.
Mind you, we’re aware that the NYT no doubt uses the same Bothell printing plant, and in fact they contract with the same people to bring it to our house. Nonetheless, Uncle Frank won’t be able to claim us as part of his circulation numbers when he puts on his knee pads and begs his advertisers not to jump ship.
artfart; i guess you don’t know what the word fiscal means; bush’s fiscal policies, while running deficits, were about 1/10 of Obamas. give it up, your guy is the one killing us w/ debt.
@38, wrongon:
Fuck, you really are stoooopid, aren’t you!?
Fact:
Here’s the facts, with LOTS of pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.....tial_terms
Just for you, here’s a real simple line graph expressed as a percent of GDP by President since Roosevelt:
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
Now go sit in the corner and lick your nuts.
@38: Wrongon
Are you defending the Bush “fiscal” policies?
You mean the guy who took a budget surplus from clinton and turned into the most massive deficit in history (to that time), yet still managed to nail the economy into the worst recession since the great depression?
The same Bush who wasted over 1 trillion on a war in Iraq that was unnecessary?
And you think that was fiscally responsible?
And you wanted to cut spending during the recession? That would have made things worse!
We are now just recovering from the disasterous bush years. Bush lost over 2.6 million jobs in 2008 alone. In fact, the rate of job loss (under Bush) and the revesal of that trend (under Obama) is the exact opposite (see link).
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com.....z0oCRHKPn9
@39: You need to explain first to Wrongon how to find his/her nutsz (that is, assuming he/she has any).
Gosh … a debate!
Dr Dre. Right On …
What art of investment don’t you understand? I live on Capital Hill. Cap Hill was developed to house families who could live here because of the trolley line.
The underlying reason for LR, is the same. Take a look at all the development going on down there. There are also plans in SeaTac t develop a business center that will integrate with down town VIA LR. How do you calculate that return on investment?
Gosh a debate Part 2.
I have some sympathy for the other side. The real questions is can LR keep Seattle livable and avoid the endless panorama of ticky tacky suburbs that afflict most of the US??
LR is like a river … it forces development along its banks. Roads, esp with good bus systems, may be lot more efficient since they can go anywhere. Kind of like enhanced walking.
OTOH, light rail is more like a teleporter. Its main function is to connect two, fixed locations.
I see the main value of LR in connecting the U District and Downtown to Seatac. When I am in cities with a good subway, the physical location of a building seems to disappear since I can get into a teleporter/subway and move easily from one place to another. Paris, Boston, London, are all like that.
I think Goldy is too romantically attached to LR. The worst of all worlds may be New York. The combination of good subways has created a rats nest of overpriced high raise AND an oil slick of suburbs.
@41:
I’m assuming “it’s” a male and knows where “its” nuts are since we see the result here in terms of wildly off the mark choad spew.
Not surprised that in a sea of minority-run businesses and residences, Goldy chooses to patronize what some to consider a gentrified bakery.
“Cap Hill was developed to house families who could live here because of the trolley line”
That was then and it isn’t particularly relevant now. It’s quite easy to see this as the rail-based class gentrification and homogenization of Rainier Valley not coming cheap. Look at that bakery in the article. It looks like it could be in Palo Alto. Old man Florian’s bakery in Hillman City where you could get a pastery knowing you could find his cigarette ashes in it – now that was a Rainier Valley bakery.
@43 “Its main function is to connect two, fixed locations.”
This is rail that slowly meanders it’s way through Rainier Valley to get to Tukwila.
Good for the Columbia City bakery. I have to head up to Seattle later this week, I’ll be sure to hop on the (endorsed by the liberal elite) light rail and make a stop at the (endorsed by the liberal elite newspaper of note) bakery.
@36
Yup!
It will be more cost effective for some stuff that’s currently shipped in from China to be made here as well.
@12
We don’t pay anything near the full cost of the roads we drive on. If the right were serious about keeping taxes down and paying for the full cost of things they’d be the world biggest supporters of creating density and people riding bicycles.
When we’re talking about roads, don’t forget that we’re driving around on a zillion years worth of pre-investment and there’s billions in differed maintenance to add into the cost. Do we add in the differed maintenance costs at what it costs us today, or what it will cost us when we get around to fixing things? What about all the oil, anti-freeze, pollution, ozone damage, asthma attacks?
When it comes to driving we don’t add up all the costs.
@43…..SJ, what part of wise investment dont you understand?
and regarding your trolley line to cap hill….when was the last time that trolley functioned? there is a reason it no longer exists.
@48…it would be interesting to find out how many of those people switched other methods of mass transit(IE busses) and how many used to drive their cars to work.
My guess is that most of those people are former bus riders…
@54
My understanding is that the Link was built, mostly, to deal with future population growth. Future growth that is now in question.
The old Chinese curse has come true: We’re living in interesting times.
@55 That, and the assumption that everyone driving around in his or her own gas buggy would become increasingly impractical.
That being said, the assumption as to when that was likely to come to pass might have been a trifle optimistic. Ten years or more ago we were talking about getting to the point of “peak oil”. Either that’s taking longer to happen, or the oil producers are covering it up by doing kinky things with existing fields (i. e. the Saudis forcing crude out of their wells by pumping sea water into the ground) or taking short cuts and calculated risks to hasten the development of new sources–the downside of which we’re now seeing in the Gulf of Mexico.
In addition, the demand for gasoline seems to be more elastic than anyone might have imagined. Even as prices reached three times what they’d been in the late 90’s people kept right on driving, some choosing to go into hock up to their eyeballs to do so. In some places like Santa Barbara, we’ve seen people carrying that to where they’ve lost their homes and ended up living in their cherished cars.
Chalk all this up to stubborn determination, stupidity or gullibility…you pick it.
With respect to the “investment” issue:
I’ve always wondered how they sold the first telephone in town. Sure, eventually it would be a network which would link the entire town by wire. But in the meantime, established messenger services provided an acceptable alternative, were cheaper, and besides, with only one telephone in town, who were you going to call? Who could justify this as a worthwhile investment?
Remember that every new technology is, in it’s initial stages, more expensive in both absolute cost and time of implementation than the system it was designed to replace. The payoff comes over time.
So it is with light rail. As the network expands, more and more people can use if for commuting. But the real payoff comes when the network reaches a critical mass where you can travel mostly by rail to just about anywhere in the city. At that point you might still want to keep one car, but a family sure wouldn’t need a second car. The family savings there would amount to thousands of dollars a year in depreciation, interest on the purchase loan, gas & maintenance, and insurance costs.
As for when it gets to that point – the Japanese managed to build a good rail network within the larger cities by the mid-1960’s, only tweny years after the wholesale destruction of their industries by Allied bombing during WWII. But then, they came up with a plan, made a decision, and implemented it. They didn’t spend years afterwards complaining that it would have been cheaper to keep riding bicycles.
@55…interesting time indeed….very true words.
@57….we dont, and never ever will, have the population density of those japanese cities – therefore the same model/comparison to puget sound does not work.
52: There was an article, I think two or three years ago, pointing out that our freeway system was designed to last for fifty years, based upon their estimated projections of traffic volumes. It wasn’t the top surface they were discussing, it was the roadbed itself (the crushed rock/concrete under the asphault).
Of course, our actual volumes are many times greater than were projected in the late 1950’s & early 1960’s. And even based on the previous projections, the time to completely re-build the road-bed is – now.
“Defered maintenance” sure has a way of coming back to bight you in the ass.
59: It’s a non-sequitor to say that because our population density doesn’t match that of Japan, that a light-rail system won’t work here. Certainly a denser population makes planning and economics easier, but that doesn’t mean that the cost/benefit line falls somewhere in central Tokyo.
Also, it’s a bit of a chicken & egg thing. Cars take up space to park, which is one of the factors which drive two-car families to the suburbs (city lots often have only limited on-street parking or dedicated space for one car). Have a system which makes it economical and practical for a family to have only one car, and a denser urban environment becomes a more practical option.
This was driven home to me the other day. My son has been looking to buy a house, and I noticed one not far from where I live which was attractively priced. I mentioned it to him. He pointed out that he had already noticed the house, and that it had a big drawback – it sat on a corner with no street parking in front of the house, on either side. It had a one-car garage and a driveway which was barely big enough for another car, if you don’t mind constantly moving cars back and forth. Gatherings with friends at the house would have been difficult.
@61…..damn, you are all over the place. The solution for the example you posted was already in place: its called a bus.
perhaps someone can riddle me this: how many new buses and bus routes would $10 billion buy?
how flexible is light rail? answer: its not.
how flexible are buses? answer: as flexible as you need them to be…they go where you drive them.
what we did was revert back to 19th century technology, and dressed it to look all fancy, waved some magic dust around, and told people it was the new paradigm.
Seattle is not Tokyo. Seattle is not New York.
“Seattle is not Tokyo. Seattle is not New York.”
Nope. It could be better than either of them.
As for busses, they have their pluses and minuses. Certainly they would remain a feeder/distributor componant of any system.
I’ve ridden on buses, trains, monorails, and subways in several cities in the U.S., as well as in several other cities around the world. I’ve gotten on a train in central Tokyo at 9:00 p.m. and travelled to a colleague’s house about 35 miles away, arriving by 9:45 p.m. Try to do that in Seattle by bus.
goldy, you owe me some money.. all the trips i’m paying your way on.
Farebox-recovery ratios — that is, the percentage of operating costs covered by passenger fares — have been disappointing. In 2009, Sound Transit Express buses recovered 22.4 percent of operating and maintenance costs from farebox revenues; Sounder commuter rail, 22.2 percent; Central Link light rail (in Seattle), 10.6 percent; and the free Tacoma Link light rail, zero percent.
http://crosscut.com/2010/04/21.....sit/19756/
oh yeah, your beloved wikipedia. and don’t lecture me about topography; they could have skipped the expensive capital hill/beacon hill segment
Costs of light rail construction and operation
The cost of light rail construction varies widely, largely depending on the amount of tunneling and elevated structures required. A survey of North American light rail projects[23] shows that costs of most LRT systems range from $15 million per mile to over $100 million per mile. Seattle’s new light rail system is by far the most expensive in the U.S. at $179 million per mile, since it includes extensive tunneling in poor soil conditions, elevated sections, and stations as deep as 180 feet (55 m) below ground level.[24] These result in costs more typical of subways or rapid transit systems than light rail. At the other end of the scale, four systems (Baltimore MD, Camden NJ, Sacramento CA, and Salt Lake City UT) incurred costs of less than $20 million per mile. Over the U.S. as a whole, excluding Seattle, new light rail construction costs average about $35 million per mile.[23] By comparison, a freeway lane expansion typically costs $20 million per lane mile for two directions.[25] Since a light rail track can carry up to 20,000 people per hour as compared with 2,400 people per hour for a freeway lane, light rail could theoretically deliver 4 times the congestion-reduction potential per dollar as incremental freeway lanes in congested urban areas. For example, in Boston and San Francisco, light rail lines carry 9,600 and 13,100 passengers per hour, respectively, in the peak direction during rush hour, exceeding the capacity of four or more lanes of freeway.[21]
no matter how you cut it..the math never ever works out for the light rail system in how its being executed in this area.
its a fucking scam that is costing us billions, that will NEVER EVER pay off.
do the math.